Free Too Hot to Handle: A Loveswept Classic Romance by Sandra Chastain Page A

resist. “Or for goats to, either!”
    “Arrrgh!” he groaned, and clasped a hand to his wounded heart. Staggering, he turned and made his way toward the spigot while she laughed.
    Callie went into the kitchen and stacked the breakfast dishes. She hadn’t had so much fun in a long time. The thought sobered her. Their relationship was getting involved, and she’d only known Matt for a couple of days.
    All logic told her that this man was trouble. He was everything she had turned her back on years ago. She’d see if she couldn’t hurry John Henry along on the Corvette’s repairs.
    “There must be something psychic about that goat,” Matt said when he came back, freshly shaved. “The way he interrupts things.”
    “Not psychic, spoiled. He’s waiting for his coffee and toast. I share mine with him every morning.” Callie spoke slowly as she placed a slice of toast in the bottom of a pan and poured milk, sugar, and coffee over it.
    “Don’t I get any?”
    “You want me to make a bowl of this for you?”
    “No, but I’d like a cup of coffee.”
    “It’s on the stove. Help yourself.” She smiled crookedly at him, took the pan, and went outside.
    Matt watched her go, and his chest swelled with pride. She was magnificent. Perfect, in both body and spirit. “Oh, Callie,” he murmured under his breath. “The plans I have for us. The plans I have.”
    Shoveling cow dung was not part of his plans, but he made the best of it. He shoveled manure from the barn into a wheelbarrow and moved it to the garden, where Callie spread it across the freshly plowed rows. Every time they went back into the barn for another load of manure he sighed at the sight of the old red Fiesta.
    “Next week I’ll till all this into the soil. Then I’ll plant my summer crops,” she explained. She knelt on the ground and lovingly cupped a handful of soil. “It’ll be a good year. A great year.”
    “What will you plant?” Matt caught the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up to wipe the perspiration from his face. This was the best workout he’d had in years. I’m a lean, mean shoveling machine, he thought wryly.
    “Corn and beans.” Callie stood up and followed his example, leaning over to use the bottom of her culottes to blot the moisture from her forehead.
    Matt stifled a sigh of ecstasy. She had no idea how much thigh she revealed when she bent forward like that. “Too bad we don’t have a swimming pool. I could use a dip in some ice water about now,” he told her.
    “Come on. I have just the solution, swimming country style.”
    She led him to a fieldstone well behind the barn. It was shaded by a white gazebo that was overrun by a green vine with clusters of purple flowers hanging heavily from it.
    “You let the bucket down,” she instructed. She began removing the well’s wooden cover.
    “Water from right out of the ground. This is terrific,” he said, his eyes wide.
    “Long ago, all water come from the ground, old legend say,” Callie deadpanned, doing her best Hollywood Indian voice. “Then great spirit make water come from bottles. Him call it Terrier.’ ”
    “Oh, can it, Carmichael.”
    She held the bucket out, and he took it, enjoying the damp heat of her skin when their hands touched.
    “Bet you don’t know diddly about drawing water,” she said teasingly.
    “I didn’t know anything about cow manure two hours ago, but from the smell of me, I’m an expert on the subject now.”
    Matt felt the bucket hit the surface of the water and slowly begin to sink. When the rope began to tug against his hands he pulled it gently. A rusty pulley creaked overhead as he gathered the rope into his hands.
    Callie thought she’d never seen such a magnificent male body as she watched him work. Every muscle in his torso came into play. He’d worked in the garden with an easy skill she hadn’t expected. Once again he’d surprised her, adapting to her life with enthusiasm. She was willing to bet that he’d never